Nation's Oldest City: Hopes for a happy, prosperous 1778

This week the Minorcan community will have its 236th new year in our town. St. Augustine’s new residents from the New Smyrna plantation no doubt hoped that the new year of 1778 would be better than the ones before.

The workers left the New Smyrna indigo plantation or “Mosquito Town” in the spring of 1777 to live in St. Augustine. They had toiled at New Smyrna for nine years. In 1768, Dr. Andrew Turnbull transported about 1,200 persons from around the Mediterranean Sea to work on his indigo plantation 75 miles south of St. Augustine.

The workers’ service contracts with Turnbull were probably for seven years. But Turnbull contended that many of them did not fulfill their promises and therefore extended the length of their obligations to him. By 1777, they had “had it” with Turnbull’s enterprise.

About 90 of the workers got away to St. Augustine in April of 1777. Here, 20 of them testified about abuses, but most were sent back to New Smyrna at the time.

Nevertheless, East Florida’s Gov. Patrick Tonyn concurred with the witnesses that there had been mistreatment and permitted their move to St. Augustine. Dr. Patricia Griffin notes that about 600 relocated to St. Augustine by June 1777. (As a side note — Tonyn’s dislike of Turnbull and vice versa might have influenced the governor’s decision.)

At the time the workers arrived in St. Augustine, they still identified themselves with their native homelands around the Mediterranean: Greece, the Italian peninsula, the island of Minorca as documents demonstrate.

When Spanish Gov. Vicente Manuel de Zespedes arrived to take control of East Florida from Great Britain on July 12, 1784, he received two petitions from the former New Smyrna residents. The first dated the day the governor arrived, opened with “Most Excellent Señor Governor, We the undersigned Italians and Greeks, sincerely and respectfully congratulate Your Excellency.” The next day another petition was delivered from “We, the undersigned Minorcans.”

The folks originally from Minorca far outnumbered the others and over the next few years the terms “Italians” and “Greeks” faded away. By the second generation the group became known as “Minorcans.”